The Videogames Tab

I got an Nvidia Shield TV for Christmas, and am loving it. Not only is the system a powerful Android TV box (with all the apps that entails) but, owing to its powerful processor (same as the one in the Switch, although overclocked), it's a very capable gaming machine in its own right, especially when it comes to emulation.

There are a few Shield exclusive games, such as the HD remasters of MGS 2 and 3, which I've bought but not played because I've been having so much of a blast with Dolphin and Reicast.

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"Critics are like eunuchs in a harem; they know how the Tatty 100 is done, they've seen it done every day, but they're unable to do it themselves." - Brendan Behan

I've done a bad thing...

(It turns out that doesn't work any more. I would have been outraged, if I wasn't so busy setting fire to chickens )

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Virtual Reality chatter on a movie site? Got endless amounts of it here. Reviews over here

I finally installed RDR2. Gorgeous. I've not gotten past the introductory burn the house down/return to camp section as I cannot read the text prompts for which button does what. Seems games are made for desktop monitor viewing instead of large screen across the living room TV viewing. I ended up strangling the poor guy in the barn instead of interrogating him because I couldn't make out which button icon was on display. Poor guy. I may have punched the horse too.

Next time I log in I'll try standing just a few feet away. Maybe I'll be able to read things at that distance. But the game looks great!

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"My Dionne Warwick understanding of your dream indicates that you are ambivalent on how you want life to eventually screw you." - Joel

"Ever try to forcibly pin down a house cat? It's not easy." - Captain Steel

"I just can't get pass sticking a finger up a dog's butt." - John Dumbear

Yes lol! I’ve had that problem too.

Drives me BATTY! Add to the font size, my T.V. is large but ooooooooold. Can't align the edges anymore so anything near that is already blurry with 3-color separations splitting up.

I've been looking at getting a new PC monitor, so I may wait for that to go any farther into this game. I don't want to miss anything.

I’ve been using a 10 plus year old plasma...it’s supposedly 1080p...which it is but I’m sure 1080 can look much better. I’ve done a few costly things around the house such as insulation and want solar panels so a new tv will have to wait. I’m still able to enjoy red dead but knowing it can look a lot better on a better screen. I’ve just finished doom also which looks great...the smoothness you can still appreciate on an old screen. Red dead’s really great though. It’s a slow pace which is somewhat refreshing. Packed full of content which strong characters and story although can’t say I’m far into the story.

How are you connecting it? HDMI?

Yea, hdmi. Is that unusual for a 10 year old plasma to have one? Also have an opti cable for a new sound bar.

Not unusual at all, it's just that I remember older flat screen TVs which didn't have HDMI inputs.

Grabbed some Skyrim VR footage:



It's just me bumbling around the first cavern (and pressing the wrong buttons, and doing far too much looting ), but it might show a bit of what VR hands etc bring to the party

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EDIT: Yeah ok it was on the starter 'Adept' level. Wayyyy too easy.

It's weird being back in Skyrim. I'm already grimacing at the encumberance waddle, and lord some of the locations haven't aged particularly well. But then others are still fairly startling or transporting. (Emerging into the widening cave where you get your first shout, edging past silent tombs, while bats scattered and traced the roof up, was a neat set piece this time round. Also just the simple act of swaying-tree-shadow covering some seemingly-ferny ground can still works it charm in the wilds).

The thundering sky-voice of the ole Greybeards (as I encumberanced my way back from the first dragon kill) was also a neat moment, with more of a feeling of being in a wide expanse suddenly, ringed by mountains.

I'm a bit torn. I've played the damn game so many times. And the melee is poop. But I just peeked at the spells available at Whiterun, and I want them alllll. And a house.

Plus having a guy run up to my face and excitedly exclaim 'Fire!', due to my casually burning hands, was just fricking hilarious

Guess I'll keep playing

This is MOSTLY off topic, but I'm bored waiting for files to copy so indulge me, please.

I had a dream ....last night. As I type this I realize how it might seem that I'm starting off by mocking MLK given that Monday was MLK Day. Not at all! Only coincidence Seriously though, I did have a dream last night and I thought I might share what of it I remember.

I was in my room. Bedroom, that is. I assume it must have been a childhood bedroom or something because that was the vibe I got from it. I don't THINK I ever lived in this room, so right off it was foreign but still I recognized it in a way. Who knows, it was a dream. I just didn't know it was a dream at the time.

Wait. Maybe forget the whole bedroom thing. I'll put that into play later. OK!

Scene: a snowy white exterior. Cold. Hills and mountainous terrain surround me. The weather is calm, but overcast. There appears to be random debris scattered for as far as I can see, but in small groupings. For example, I can see what appears to be broken and scattered planks of lumber in a roughly 10'x10' area. Maybe 100 yards from that is another minor mess of other objects. There are few trees, but enough to occasionally block my view and to invite exploration in case something of need might be just out of sight.

This is where I happen to exist. As I walk through the snow, I notice a crowbar under a plank of wood. I take possession in that I really have no idea where I am or how dangerous this environment is. At least I feel that I can maybe defend myself at this point. After slowly scanning the landscape, I notice what looks to be some type of rifle, or maybe a shotgun. I recognize it because it appears to have a faint golden glow radiating from the body of the gun. Strange.

I find another, but unable to carry more I have to sacrifice one weapon for the other. I make my choice and move on.

About this point in my exploration I drift off mentally to another dream. I'm still unaware that I am dreaming so this transition totally makes sense to me. I don't remember what came immediately next, but as time passed I found myself in a light colored bedroom. This is the room I opened with. Now that I think more on it, perhaps it wasn't my bedroom but my grandparents'? They had a large king size bed that I would sleep in when I was little, visiting for the summer. Papa also had a small collection of rifles that were always propped barrel-up in the corner made between the wall and chest of drawers. Yes, my cousins and I would play with them. No, we didn't accidentally shoot each other (thank goodness). Though one or two cousins would NOT be missed, if I'm honest. My grandmother had a large window air conditioning unit that was always on and running cold. Strange how memories reflect.

Now I'm in the bedroom. White sheets are loose and scattered across the mattress. I noticed some objects on the bed. It looks like a few toothpicks have been dropped, or perhaps those wooden tongue depressors used to support frozen fruit treats. A few were broken and lightly scattered. I climb onto the bed and begin to investigate, pulling a sheet overhead slightly to commit myself more to the principle of childish curiosity. On closer inspection, this is not at all a toothpick, but, rather, a tiny riffle. I look deeper into the caverns created by my bed sheet cave and notice another not more than two feet from my current position. It was obscured by a fold in my sheet, but still it had a faint glow about it. I recognized it as the rifle from earlier, when I my dream started. Still, I did not recognize this yet as a dream. But I was confused and my fears began to race unable to make sense of things.

I found the edge of the bed. It was the long edge, closest to the bedroom wall---the edge from which things fall and are forgotten for the required effort to reclaim such things through the narrow gap, too narrow for the elbow and too deep to touch bottom. Looking down into the abyss I see a cable. Odd that this cable should be there as I just purchased it only a few days earlier. Usually such wastelands are reserved for older things. Lesser things. This cable was a supply line to string guitar pedals onto a single power source. Why was this here? Why is there a tiny rifle glowing at my side? And why are there broken wood chips in this bed? Whose bed am I in? The confusion and paranoia began to overwhelm me. Then... I woke.

Wtf? I haven't even played The Long Dark since before Christmas! And even then, it wasn't for very long.

Yeah, it's the kind of game that can really burrow into your head.

The first three attempts I died pretty quick. I did get to make a fire under a bridge but still died before I made it into a train car. My last go at it lasted a few days (in game days) before I logged out. I'm still alive, but really have no clue what I'm supposed to do. I explored some 3-story machine shop looking place with a lot of heavy equipment inside. I'm finding mostly junk like scrap fabrics and cardboard. Maybe a bag of chips and a can of soda. Looks like that zone just circles in on itself. I noticed one passage way prompted a "leave area?" question. I chose not to.

It is interesting that I can collect cat tails on the frozen ponds. No clue what to do with them though. That goes back to the problem I mentioned with RDR2 with text and info frames being unreadable on my screen from my couch. I have a feeling both of these games are going to require a lot of contextual reading, RPG level gear manipulation, and a clear recognition of on-screen prompts for timely reactions. Unfortunately, I just can't read any of it so both games are on halt until that is resolved.

Hopefully, I'll order a monitor in the next few weeks to put on my desk then just move everything back there to the studio. I'll leave the PS3 in the living room for movies and the older games I guess, but as it is I can't advance too far in the PS4 universe on this old rear screen projector.

Spoiler alert for The Last of Us

I went back and played through The Last of Us (Remastered) at the beginning of the month. Joel might be my favorite gaming character of all-time. Video game writing is usually not this good, or at least that's what I've experienced. Characters aren't usually this well written. The stories don't usually grip me, at least not to extent that they do in The Last of Us. I'm usually more drawn in by the visually artistry or just the gameplay. I love it when the two come together for something great, like Super Meat Boy. I am really gripped by pieces of lore games gives you through collectibles or items or whatever, but that almost feels like cheating sometimes. The Last of Us gets just about everything right though. I love the different environments you get put in. I enjoy the gameplay, but to be honest, I am not all that hard to please in this regard and I played on the normal difficulty. I love the design of the infected creatures. I love the story. I love the dynamic of Ellie and Joel, with Ellie coming to be Joel's second chance. And maybe most importantly, the game never feels like a sh*tty escort mission. I love that the game gets harder when you control Ellie, because there is no way a young girl should have the same skill level as a grizzled veteran of this hard world. Familial deaths in art affect me more now that my mother has passed, but I played this game once before my mother passed and that opening sequence got some tear duct action going then and now. I think the different characters you interact with along your way are all pretty much well-written as well. They are not perfect, if I had one gripe, I would say I'm not entirely sold on Marlene being back with the Fireflies when you get there and her entire backstory. I'm a little torn on that, because I don't now if the last scene where Joel shoots her would work as well with another character that didn't have that same connection with Ellie. That scene and the aftermath with Joel lying to Ellie about the situation afterwards are so powerful that I am willing to forgive a very minor nitpick.

I also played the standalone expansion pack that came with the game: Left Behind. Once again, a lot of the same praise should go to this game too. I forgot to mention above, but I'll say it here and it goes for both: exceptional voice work from these actors. This little story is touching and for what it is, a short story basically, it packs an emotional punch. I'd say maybe it's a little cliche with everything coming together right when it's too late. Love story tragedies like this have existed for a long, long time, but you don't have to reinvent the wheel every time out. So that's just a minor quibble, I also don't know if them being in lesbians with each other was supposed to feel like a surprise moment or not, but it wasn't really a surprise. It was a nice "kiss her already" type moment there at the end, so that was satisfying. But it also did a tremendous job at getting across that these kids are still kids even though they are going through their coming-of-age. There was that child-like wonder over things like the merry-go-round, the pun book, and the water gun fight. The gameplay during the water gun fight was meh, but I could feel the importance of this moment in the character's lives, so that outweighed the mediocre gameplay for that section. I wish this was a little bit longer, because it would standout as legit 5-star game on its own if that was the case.

Ok I've heard so many great things about Subnautica now that I'm definitely snagging it on the next sale. Not that I have time for another craft-your-survival world to get lost in, and I'll have to mod the **** out of it to stop the UI being attached to my cheeks in VR, but damn, the love for that game just keeps coming!

So the resident evil 2 remake is a critical hit. If and really only if that translates to great sales is there a change we may be entering the dawn of the video game remake?

If they're as good as the RE2 remake then why not?

Remasters have been a thing since the dawn of this generation, an admission that graphical fidelity has not progressed that much as anything else, but there have already been some fantastic full-on remakes, Shadow of the Colossus and RE2 being the standouts.

I've only had time to sit down with RE2 for a little while but, man, is that an impressive game.

Where would RE2remake rank among the best zombie games of all-time? If you allow yourself to extrapotcv

I got really jazzed about RE2. Those games hit at such a time in my life, that I really don't have intense feelings like that anymore. Well, not counting anger



Perfect game from my perfect time period, updated to today's specs I was gonna spaz buy it until that unfinished RDR2 dust colony caught my eye.

I have a lot of ND dna in my blood. That's probably why I had a weird time with TLoU. Uncharted flowed and moved so well, yet TLoU felt very stilted, interrupted, jarring. I realize they aren't the same game, but I know Uncharted probably contributed to my opinion.



The story and visual were great. When you come across *the animals* , what a great moment. The story just doesn't overcome my issues with gameplay. I'm not gonna address crafting.